


berkeley philadelphia gaffney

by entanglement



Series: places [2]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 08:51:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1934556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglement/pseuds/entanglement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>old friends</p>
            </blockquote>





	berkeley philadelphia gaffney

**Berkeley, CA**

It's not like she's not pretty. Most would probably think the redhead that takes the seat across from Lorne in the cafe is beautiful. Her hair is styled in big curls and she's got that eyeliner that's popular now that's applied up and past her eyes to give the effect of long, dark lashes. There's an alluring pink color applied to her lips that seems to further soften when she smiles. Seriously, though, it isn't that she isn't pretty.

He'd made the mistake of taking on the bookish look of a professor in the kind of place that's crawling with young people looking for father figures when he's actually just looking the part as he positions himself to kill the dean of one of the private schools in the city.

"I'm about to leave, so let's skip ahead," he says, wincing when this receives an expectant look from the girl. "Not interested."

"Oh," she says, obviously disappointed. 

"In women," he adds to try to reassure her.

She stares for a moment before it sinks in. Well, before the usual assumption sinks in. "Oh!"

"Or men. Or anyone," he adds as he stands. He gathers his coffee cup and newspaper and leaves her to puzzle over what he could possibly be interested in. 

\--

**Philadelphia, PA**

Most of the cars that line the street outside the stadium have smashed windshields and rear view mirrors knocked clean off from the sides, but Lorne's rental car is actually on fire when he returns to it. Thankfully, his duffel bag and suitcase of tapes inside are still intact and when he reaches in, he just barely misses getting hit in the head by a flying beer bottle that instead bounces off the side of the car and shatters on the sidewalk. He glances down it and shrugs before he leans in again and grabs the rental agreement and the carbon from the insurance form he signed just in case the rental place is still there in the morning. Judging from the crowds surging around the Linc, it'll be a miracle if Philadelphia isn't a pile of ashes by daybreak.

Lorne isn't a football fan. He's not really a fan of any sports at all, but he understands the sort of pressure it puts on the people that do call themselves fans. Considering the Eagles' string of losses, that pressure is even heavier on Philadelphians and what better way to show them he empathizes by helping them introduce a little violence into the equation. It's stress relief.

A news van arrives on the scene and since Lorne is the only one that looks sane enough to talk to, the reporter approaches him for a statement.

"Team lost. Existence is chaos and the weak grasp we have on the change of its direction turns us into monkeys shouting at a monolith," Lorne says calmly into the microphone the reporter holds out to him. They won't ever chat about it, but there's a bone deep sense of unease the reporter and camera man both feel when Lorne speaks. The calm drone of his voice paralyzes them shortly, so it takes them some time to look back and scurry off when he nods towards their van and says, "Crowd's gonna tip that over." 

Thankfully forgotten, Lorne starts his leisurely stroll towards the airport to catch a flight home. 

\--

**Gaffney, SC**

Carolina Murphy is not his real name. It's the sub par result you get when you ask a man without a creative bone in his body to come up with a pseudonym that'll put him as far from his true identity as possible. That lack of creativity is why he only lasted a few years on the job before retiring back to his hometown to live on the handful of bounties he managed not to foul up, but it's also why he doesn't have a tongue anymore. Some guy he was running a con out west a couple years back saw through the stories Carolina gave him and got pretty literal with his comeuppance by cutting out his tongue so he couldn't lie anymore. 

"Buzz is dead," Carolina says. He's hard as hell to understand with that stub of a tongue, but he makes up for it by exaggerating the shape of his lips around every word.

"Poor bastard," Lorne mutters.

Buzz Mead was a shitty hitman too. Missing an eye might've been fun for spooking his buddies at the bar when he'd pop it out and leave it in someone's drink, but it also meant no depth perception. Being an awful shot caught him one in the head in Tuscaloosa just a week earlier, trying to get out of some kinda sting operation to catch amateurs looking to be hitmen. Buzz wasn't green, just greedy.

"Why don't you retire?" Carolina asks. 

The two men look out from Carolina's porch where they'd been drinking mint juleps through the late afternoon heat. The cicadas drone, birds sing and a fat bumblebee buzzes lazily by on its way to the butterfly bushes that line the far end of the porch. There are children laughing down the street and a guy walking an ugly white dog waves to them on his way by and Carolina cheerily waves back. It's fucking terrible.

"I'm not an old piece of shit like you, Carolina," Lorne says and both men burst out into laughter.


End file.
